My story

How Igot here.

The long version, including the parts I used to leave off the resume.

(11) Chapters

Portrait of Steven Espinal
  1. 01An attic apartment in Jamaica, Queens.Growing up
  2. 02The first script.2017
  3. 03A full ride, then the door.2017
  4. 04Columbia University, three months.2019
  5. 05BMCC. Dropped out. Again.2020
  6. 06First salary job with benefits: $75,000.Jan 2022
  7. 07Nearly doubled it.Oct 2022
  8. 08Health tech raised the bar.2022–2025
  9. 09$170k, and still learning.Jul 2025
  10. 10The degree, finally.2024–2026
  11. 11Same kid from Queens.Now

  1. Growing up

    An attic apartment in Jamaica, Queens.

    For the first thirteen years of my life, home was the attic apartment of a house in Jamaica, Queens: the top floor, tucked inside two peaked roofs. It was so small that every room was barely a room, but somehow it had everything we needed.

    We didn’t have a lot. My dad ran a small business and worked hours that didn’t make sense, and he still showed up when it mattered.

    I’m very introverted and reserved, but when I get to know someone, I can be very loud and passionate about the things I care about.

    Steven with his family at a birthday celebration
    My Ohana.

  2. 2017

    The first script.

    I started coding in 2017 to make my dad’s life easier. His business ran on tedious data entry, so I taught myself enough to write scripts that did it for him. Watching him use something I built was the moment it stopped being a hobby.

    For about a year, that was the routine: work during the day, teach myself to code at night. No degree, no bootcamp yet. Just docs, tutorials, and a lot of broken code.

    Steven sitting outside with a laptop on his knees
    Working remotely.

  3. 2017

    A full ride, then the door.

    I got a full ride to Baruch College (they actually paid me to go with financial aid). I found out Baruch didn’t offer a computer science degree at the time.

    So I left. Walking away from free school felt insane. I did it anyway.

  4. 2019

    Columbia University, three months.

    May to August 2019: the Columbia Engineering Coding Boot Camp. Three months of full-stack JavaScript, group projects, and finally being around people who wanted the same thing I did.

    That program doesn’t exist anymore. It shut down. But I believe it was the best decision I made. It’s where I connected the missing gaps in my knowledge and started building for real.

  5. 2020

    BMCC. Dropped out. Again.

    I gave school one more shot, this time at BMCC. By then I was already writing production code, and sitting through intro classes for a piece of paper felt backwards.

    I dropped out. Again. Two schools, zero degrees, and a portfolio that was getting better every week.

  6. Jan 2022

    First salary job with benefits: $75,000.

    In January 2022 I landed a contract-to-hire software engineering role at $75k a year. It was my first salaried job with benefits, and I treated it like an audition: deadlines, bugs in production, and learning the difference between code that works and code that’s good.

    $75k. For a kid from an attic apartment in Queens, that number didn’t feel real.

    Steven from behind at a bowling alley
    Queens, NY.

  7. Oct 2022

    Nearly doubled it.

    Ten months in, BrightInsight converted me to full time, and my salary went from $75k to $130k. Nearly double, in less than a year.

  8. 2022–2025

    Health tech raised the bar.

    At BrightInsight I worked on HIPAA-regulated health software, where a bug isn’t just a bad deploy. It can touch someone’s health data. That raised my bar for everything: testing, code review, and writing code other engineers could trust without me in the room.

    In 2024 I got a raise to $135k, and it’s also where I went back for the degree, on nights and weekends, while shipping full time.

  9. Jul 2025

    $170k, and still learning.

    In July 2025 I joined Thesis as a software engineer at $170k, and kept the coursework going on nights and weekends.

    From $75k to $170k in three and a half years. No degree yet.

  10. 2024–2026

    The degree, finally.

    In January 2024 I enrolled at Western Governors University for a B.S. in Computer Science and did it while working full time: nights, weekends, lunch breaks.

    I finished in August 2026. Third school. First degree. It took me eight years longer than the “normal” path, and I’m prouder of it than anything else on this site.

    Steven in a suit at night with the city behind him
    August 2026.

  11. Now

    Same kid from Queens.

    As of August 2026, I’m a contingent worker at Anthropic via HireArt. I was raised in Jamaica, Queens. I live in Hell’s Kitchen.

    If you want to connect, or just say hi, my email is below. I answer.

FAQ

Questions I get a lot.

Why go back for a CS degree if you were already making six figures?

Because the work had already outrun the paperwork, and I was tired of that gap. I’d walked away from two schools already — Baruch didn’t even offer a CS degree, and by BMCC I was already writing production code, so sitting through intro classes for a piece of paper felt backwards. I enrolled at WGU in 2024, kept the full-time engineering job, and finished the B.S. in August 2026. Third school. First degree, eight years later than the “normal” path. I wanted the foundation, and I wanted to close a loop I’d left open twice.

How did you get hired without a degree?

I showed work. The first scripts were for my dad’s business in 2017, automating the data entry that was eating his week. Columbia’s coding bootcamp gave me three months of full-stack JavaScript and a cohort in 2019 — a program that doesn’t even exist anymore. PLNETWORKS hired me in 2020 on a portfolio, not a diploma. After that, each role was about what I’d already shipped: production bugs, HIPAA software, storefronts. The degree came eight years later. It didn’t open the first door.

What actually moved your career forward?

In January 2022 I took a contract-to-hire role through Cazton and treated every day like an audition. Ten months later the client, BrightInsight, converted me to full time, and I spent the next few years building HIPAA-regulated software before joining Thesis in 2025. Same skills, different rooms. The market paid for proof. I treated interviews like case studies of work I’d already done, not like a plea for a first chance.

Where are you from, and where are you now?

I was raised in Jamaica, Queens. First thirteen years in a tiny attic apartment. I live in Hell’s Kitchen now. The city didn’t get bigger. I just moved west of the same story.

How do you actually use Cursor and Claude?

As a tutor and a pair, not as a ghostwriter. I still read the diff. I still throw away the parts that look clever and aren’t. The tools make the boring parts faster so I can spend the hours on the decisions that have to be mine.

What would you tell someone learning to code right now?

Build something your family can use. Put it in public. Don’t wait for a school to bless the start. I dropped out twice, then finished. Both of those were the right call at the time.